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Friday, November 1, 2013

The Friday Four, Part 38 ~ Halloween Edition

~1~

I have to admit that Halloween is not my favorite holiday. You'd think that with my theatre background, I'd live for the chance to put on a snazzy costume and fun makeup and really ham it up. But we have several family birthdays earlier in the month and October always seems so busy anyway that Halloween sneaks up on me and I don't realize it until one of my kids announces that he thinks it would be great for our whole family to go as the Avengers to the party at church. Tomorrow.

So, the Avengers thing didn't work out this year. (There's always next year, right? I think I'd make a smashing Black Widow. Anyone have a red wig I can borrow? Maybe if I start with 364 days advance notice I have a chance of pulling it off!) But we managed to find something each of the boys was happy with. At least until Evan lost his Batman mask, Will refused to wear an Ironman mask or even to let me draw on Tony Stark-like facial hair, and Josh broke his lightsaber halfway through the evening.

Sigh.

Luke Skywalker, Batman, and Ironman:
Adorable and ready to collect some candy!!

Happy Halloween!

~2~

One of the other things about Halloween that's always bugged me is that it seems like a pretty selfish holiday. It's all gimme, gimme, gimme, more candy, more treats, he got more Crunch bars than I did! It's not fair! (At least that's how it's been at our house, and I'm sure we're the only ones who have that issue.)

So this year, in an attempt to make it just a little bit more about others, we went trick-or-treating at a nearby nursing home/rehab facility. The boys still got plenty of candy, and the "grandmas and grandpas" seemed to be absolutely delighted by the stream of adorable children coming through.

Plus, it was much warmer than knocking on doors, the kids' costumes weren't hidden by their coats, and we got just as much trick-or-treating done in about a quarter of the time. Talk about a win-win-win!

For anyone else out there trying to figure out what to do with All. That. Candy. I present "Top 10 Scientific Uses For Leftover Halloween Candy." It's an older article, but there are some great ideas in there if you don't want to eat all those Skittles and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups yourself, or if you've failed to convince your children that the Switch Witch is coming to trade it for a great new toy they've been wanting.

[Edited to add: A couple of friends pointed me to local "candy buyback" programs that dentists sometimes run. Kids get $1/lb for their Halloween goodies and the candy is then shipped to soldiers deployed overseas. Plug in your zip code at www.halloweencandybuyback.com and see if anyone near you is participating! Thanks for the tip, Sarah and Colleen!]

And speaking of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, I've linked to this one before, but it deserves another listen: